


Connection

by DelilahBlueEyes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Ficlet, Rushbelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 12:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2192112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahBlueEyes/pseuds/DelilahBlueEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>midstorm prompted: Rush realizes Belle has feelings for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connection

It took him far longer than he would ever care to admit, though on the day he finally understood, he liked to think that he did not waste a single moment. Belle had always had the most expressive face, with her striking blue eyes and her plump pink lips and her tumble of shining mahogany curls. They were features that would give any man pause, and certainly had caught Nick’s attention quickly enough, but there was so much more about her that had drawn him in. It was the fact that those eyes were so clear and bright, that her beautiful mouth seemed to know her feelings before she herself did. That she looked at him like a friend and was so quick with her smiles and laughter.

It was inevitable, really, to love her. Like a fly lured into the waiting maw of a venus fly trap, until it was too late to do anything but surrender to the sweet pain of being consumed. He’d known he loved her for a long time, had been excruciatingly aware of it with every day that passed, with every hole she gladly mended in his socks and the little store of apples (at least they looked like apples) that she kept to the side for him in the hydroponics lab. It was on a day when they’d found a habitable planet to scout on that he knew it. He watched her stare wonderingly around with her enormous eyes, saw her delighted smile when the natural light warmed her face, felt her ringing laughter pierce straight through to his brain as she spun and spun with her arms out to her sides. And he loved her.

After that, it was easy as breathing, loving Belle. Thinking about Belle, talking to Belle, watching Belle. It was as if she were illuminated under a spotlight the moment she entered a room and he was never completely unaware of her when they were together, no matter the work he was doing. And the worst part of the entire situation was that she had no bloody clue.

She swanned about in her delicate fairy princess skirts and gave her eyes free reign to sparkle at one and all and she had no clue how it pained him to love her and to keep it from her when all he wanted to do was breathe her in and keep her hidden away in the bridge with him. But that couldn’t be. His Belle was a creature of light and air and sweetness, not one that should be kept by anyone. So he watched her and he talked with her and he treated her gently and he loved her madly, but he only ever lurked in the shadows thrown by her illumination.

Until the day they were alone on the bridge and he was thinking that she needed some sun as the green light from the consoles washed out her fair skin. She looked up at him, tucked her hair behind her ear and held his gaze. It was as if the fog had cleared from his mind as he stared at her and he wondered how he could ever have been so stupid. It was right there in her eyes, those eyes that he could swim in if he wanted to, and the smile that hung on her lips that he wanted to taste and commit to memory. How he could have ever missed it, he did not know. She was beautiful and she was kind and she was honest to the point of folly.

And she loved him.


End file.
